{"id":2323,"date":"2008-03-26T06:30:13","date_gmt":"2008-03-26T11:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=2323"},"modified":"2020-12-21T05:35:06","modified_gmt":"2020-12-21T11:35:06","slug":"whos-afraid-of-the-big-bad-media-part-iii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=2323","title":{"rendered":"Who’s Afraid Of The Big Bad Media, Part III"},"content":{"rendered":"

The other day, I read Andy Birkey’s piece in the MNMon<\/a> about Rep. Michele Bachmann’s preference for appearing on conservative and Christian media outlets.\u00a0 I responded <\/a>by inviting a group of liberal politicians – Senator Klobuchar, candidate Franken, Reps. Ellison and McCollum, mayor Rybak and Joel Kramer<\/strike> Dane Smith – to appear either on the NARN or, via email interview, in this blog.<\/p>\n

Some commenters responded “do you honestly think you’re in the same league as MPR or WCCO?”\u00a0 And to be honest, there were two answers to that question.<\/p>\n

When it comes to the quality of the interviews – a level of incisive civility and an aim toward getting actual content from an interview, as opposed to plate-throwing or button-pushing – Ed and I are as good as anyone out there.<\/p>\n

But the commenters’ question, and that answer, really miss the point.\u00a0 Each of these politicans represents (or, in Franken’s case, wants <\/em>to represent) people of all <\/em>political and social stripes.\u00a0 Keith Ellison and Betty McCollum – like Rep. Bachmann – represent districts where large, significant minorities disagree with them, and\u00a0 have tough questions for them.\u00a0 The questions deserve answers.\u00a0 And if a representative won’t face people who have civilly-placed but incisive questions, then can it be fairly said they’re even trying to represent everyone?<\/p>\n

So if it’s fair to try to take a whack at Rep. Bachmann for ducking out on an unfriendly, biased media (and let’s do be honest, here; after a couple of decades of Morgan Grams and Alan Fine hatchet-jobbery, it’s a fair cop), then it is certainly fair to wonder why Minnesota’s other <\/em>elected officials won’t return to the favor (to a media outlet that opposes them, but has, unlike the Strib <\/em>and Almanac <\/em>and WCCO, a reputation for fairness and civility and sticking to the facts).<\/p>\n

Oh, yeah – so far, I’ve heard back from only one of my invitees.\u00a0 Since arrangements are still underway, I won’t let it slip just yet, but let’s just say this person is not <\/em>an elected official.<\/p>\n

As to the rest?\u00a0 Well, I’ll give it a week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The other day, I read Andy Birkey’s piece in the MNMon about Rep. Michele Bachmann’s preference for appearing on conservative and Christian media outlets.\u00a0 I responded by inviting a group of liberal politicians – Senator Klobuchar, candidate Franken, Reps. Ellison and McCollum, mayor Rybak and Joel Kramer Dane Smith – to appear either on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,4],"tags":[208],"class_list":["post-2323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogs","category-media","tag-a-klo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2323"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22407,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2323\/revisions\/22407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}